


The Means of Reproduction

by BlueMinuet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Biology, Established Relationship, M/M, Mpreg scare, Potential Parenthood, fluff with plot, sorry wing I accidently got some worldbuilding in your fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMinuet/pseuds/BlueMinuet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TG: maybe what?<br/>TG: c'mon, don't leave me here writhing around in painful suspense<br/>EB: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN KARKAT PREGNANT<br/>TG: ...<br/>TG: what?</p><p>In which John isn’t stupid, just worried that he’s living in a universe where male pregnancy is a thing.<br/>A comedy of errors in three acts (and an epilogue).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I: Of Absent Condoms and Questionable Sex-Ed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WingSongHalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingSongHalo/gifts).



> For my wonderful palewife Wing's birthday. I bet you thought I forgot about this story...  
> Hope you love it.

You stare at your computer like a deer caught in the deadly glow of an 18-Wheeler’s business end. Twenty solid minutes of googling has provided you no answers for your burning questions, and actually only managed to make you clear your browser history and run virus scans.

Being someone in desperate need of having an embarrassing question answered, you resort to asking for help. Not from a professional, of course, but from the one person that—as per the bylines of the Best Bro Code TM —would never judge you for whatever stupid question you ask. 

ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

EB: dave  
EB: dave  
EB: DAVE  
TG: calm your tits john  
TG: i can tell right now that you have terribly enflamed tits  
TG: in fact the fumes may be affecting your better judgment  
EB: dave, i have a problem.  
TG: i noticed  
TG: i’m calling tit911 right now to tell them of your emergency  
TG: they should be sending the fire trucks in soon  
EB: dave! quit joking! this is serious!  
TG: okay, bro  
TG: what is it?  
EB: i have a huge problem!!  
TG: well, lay it on me  
EB: i think i might have... i mean, i'm not sure, but i heard karkat talking to kanaya and i think maybe...  
TG: maybe what?  
TG: c'mon, don't leave me here writhing around in painful suspense  
EB: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN KARKAT PREGNANT

You stare at your computer screen, waiting for Dave’s reply. His responses are usually snappy, keeping the conversation flowing, so the long gap feels awkward and strains your already frayed nerves.

TG: ...  
TG: what?

You bite your lip, which has already been heavily abused by your front teeth for the better part of an hour. Dave’s response is reasonable, though you had been hoping for a bit more. 

EB: dave, what do i do? do you think maybe i'm wrong? i mean, is that even possible?    
TG: um   
TG: okay  
TG: i don’t even  
TG: let’s back up a bit  
TG: what makes you think that you knocked up your alien boyfriend?  
EB: well, because we… you know… we’ve had… y’know  
TG: right, so you’ve y’known each other in the somewhat biblical sense  
TG: that is how people get pregnant  
TG: wait a minute  
TG: are you telling me that you’ve only just now y’known each other?  
TG: like, just recently  
EB: dave! that’s a very personal question!   
TG: hey, you asked me for help, dude  
TG: just trying to get an idea of the situation  
EB: um, well… yeah  
EB: we y’know’d for the first time a week or two ago.  
TG: …  
TG: no way  
EB: what?   
TG: what the fuck, egbert  
TG: you and shouty mcnubs have been going out for, like, what, a year or something  
TG: hell, you two have been living together for months  
TG: and you’re only now getting around to doing the nasty?  
EB: could we go back to calling it y’knowing each other? it sounds less dirty that way.   
TG: sorry to offend your apparently-not-virgin ears   
EB: and well  
EB: we decided to take it slow, you know?  
TG: whatever  
TG: this is pretty far off-topic anyway  
TG: that still doesn’t explain why you think vantas is knocked up  
TG: you know that having sex doesn’t mean someone instantly gets pregnant, right?  
TG: or do i have to start preaching middle school sex-ed to you?  
EB: i know that.  
EB: but i overheard him and kanaya talking  
TG: eavesdropping on the bf, huh?   
EB: it’s not like that!!!  
EB: he and kanaya have their palebro talks or whatever, and i’m totally okay with it and i try to give them space and stuff.  
EB: but i just happened to be walking by them talking in the kitchen and i heard part of the conversation  
TG: okay, well what exactly did you overhear? 

* * *

You were just trying to get a snack, honest. Snooping on Karkat and Kanaya was pretty low on your priority list. In fact, as soon as you realized that they were in the kitchen you turned around, figuring you could just grab some of the munchies from the secret stashes you keep all around the house. 

(You have secret stashes of food around for reasons.)

But you couldn’t help but catch a glance of them through the crack in the door. Karkat looked a bit shell shocked, and Kanaya was papping him in a moirail-y way. 

“Are you sure you’d be okay with that?” you hear Kanaya ask. 

Admittedly, you had a lot of time to get away. Just keep walking, go back upstairs or something. But crouching down and hiding on the side of the kitchen door was also a viable option, and just happened to be the one you opted for. Purely out of instinct and not out of curiosity or anything.

And even if it was curiosity, who could blame you? Statements like that beg for follow-ups. 

“I guess so,” you hear Karkat reply slowly. “I have no fucking clue. I never thought about shit like this before. Especially not in relation to Egbert.” 

He only calls you Egbert when he’s being defensive, so you know something is bothering him. 

“Well, it is certainly your decision,” Kanaya says. “There’s no pressure. It’s not too late to change your mind. Though… the survival of our species is a factor, of course.”

“Wow, thanks, Kanaya,” Karkat grumbled. “Yeah, no pressure. Just think about this whole wriggler thing. But also remember that our species might die if you decide not to do this and rest some of the responsibility in John’s freakishly long-fingered hands.” 

What? You do not have long fingers. They are perfectly normal—wait, what was that about you and wrigglers being involved in the same rant?

“Just take a while to think about it,” Kanaya says, soothingly. “Don’t make any sort of rash decision. This should be taken into consideration carefully.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Karkat says. “I’ll think it over and let you know. Anyway, can we just talk about something else? This conversation is making me nauseous.”

* * *

EB: so, i’m not sure what else they could have been talking about.  
TG: have you tried, oh, i don’t know… asking him about it?   
EB: i can’t do that.   
TG: you’re right  
TG: that’s way too simple  
TG: good thinking, egbert  
EB: that’s not what i meant.  
EB: it’s just…  
EB: i don’t want to rush him or anything. like maybe he’s worried about telling me and stuff. i don’t want to force him to admit to it.  
EB: also, i still don’t even know if its possible. what if i’m overreacting, and he thinks i’m an idiot?  
TG: i think that would just make it an ordinary tuesday  
EB: dave  
TG: okay, fine  
TG: look, just calm down  
TG: just so happens that tz just graced me with her terrifying presence  
TG: being the fine specimen of troll biology that she is, i’ll just ask her to clarify  
TG: that is, if you’re okay with her knowing that you are y’knowingly active with vantas  
EB: um…  
EB: i guess as long as it’s just the two of you that know, it’s okay.  
EB: just don’t tell anyone or start a memo about it or anything…  
TG: jeez, egbert. what kind of horrible people do you take us for?   
EB: …   
EB: when karkat and i started dating, you and terezi started a memo called “K4RKLES G3TS TH3 G1RL: TH3 COMMUN1ST CONSP1R4CY ED1T1ON”  
TG: in my defense, i only had the goal of protecting democracy at heart  
EB: dave…  
TG: fine, i solemnly swear that this stays between you, me, tz, and the hypothetical bun in karkat’s means of production  
EB: DAVE!   
TG: brb, asking tz

You wring your hands together. You try to occupy yourself while you wait, but ultimately you end up more or less staring at Dave’s chat window, hoping for a reply. How long could it possibly take to ask whether or not male trolls could be pregnant? 

It’s not that you didn’t have the sex talk when you were younger. You did. Sort of. But to be perfectly honest, you probably would have understood things better if your Dad hadn’t decided to bake a cake for the occasion and draw illustrations with icing. 

You mean, not that he wasn’t an artist when it came to cake decorations, but honestly there are things you didn’t need to see be drawn with icing piping. You must admit that, to this day, you honestly have no idea what he was getting at with that. 

You’ve heard that your friends had it worse though; Dave’s bro chose to illustrate with puppets and Rose’s mother took a similar tactic, but with wizard figurines. Jade was by far the most in the dark, as the closest she got to a sex talk was Bec awkwardly humping some of her grandfather’s taxidermy animals. 

So, it’s not as if you don’t know about sex. Between having one of the top four most awkward sex talks in the history of paradox space and growing up with an internet connection, you’re not totally in the dark. 

Though, granted, spending the better part of your teenage years in this weirdo game didn’t actually lend itself to having the most normal development in that area. But, comparatively speaking, pretty much every human left alive has a similar experience, so you’re fairly normal as far as that goes. 

But you also have no idea how this all works when it comes to trolls. 

Well, okay, actually you do. In that you have done the, well, do. With a troll. And you know all about their downstairs mix-up, and if you even insinuate in an internal monologue that you don’t like it, you are a filthy liar, John Egbert. 

You like it a lot. 

Still, you haven’t the faintest clue what things apply to both humans and trolls. 

You know the basics of human sex; men have penises and women have vaginas. Peg A goes into Slot B and there is the most basic of all sexual… things. 

The problem—well, okay, it’s not a problem, per se—is that trolls have both the peg and the slot, and this makes you nervous. 

Because, to put it bluntly, you had your peg in Karkat’s slot, and it wasn’t until afterwards that cheesy phrases like ‘no glove, no love’ started echoing in your ears, and you remembered that slot and peg rendezvous are the most common cause of babies. 

And it’s stupid, right? Because, that’s not a thing that happens, is it? I mean, you two are two different species. Different species can’t make babies. That’s all sorts of sci-fi stuff. 

Then again, though, you’re kind of in this weird world where ecto-biology is an actual thing, so who knows? It would actually make some sense that your species could make babies with each other, considering that his species created yours. 

Of course, there’s the fact that he’s a male, right? But, as far as you can tell, there really isn’t much difference between male and female trolls. You remember Kanaya saying something about how their sexes and genders are vestigial, left over from a time in their evolutionary history when they were more like humans. 

Though, honestly, you weren’t paying much attention to that. You were probably playing footsie under the table with Karkat, thinking about how science is boring and kissing is way more awesome. 

Shit.

Finally, after agonizing minutes of waiting, Dave responds. 

TG: back   
EB: well?   
EB: what did she say?  
TG: well… you know how everything was terrible over on troll world?   
EB: um… ?   
TG: turns out that, yeah, some male trolls can get pregnant  
EB: oh no  
TG: btw, she says  
TG: (hold on, gotta change my font color and shit to make this extra fucking authentic)  
TG: CONGR4TS ON 1NF3ST1NG K4RKL3S W1TH YOUR H1D3OUS HUM4N P4R4S1T3S  
TG: end quote  
EB: oh god…  
TG: yep  
EB: dave, what do i do???   
TG: no clue, bro. never been there  
EB: well…  
EB: what would terezi do?  
TG: uh, well, apparently female trolls can’t get pregnant  
TG: kinda like seahorses or whatever  
TG: you know, in keeping with how everything on troll world is upside down and terrible  
EB: shit  
TG: yeah  
TG: ‘course now i have to break it to tz that we will never have grubs of our own  
TG: she thought maybe i could, since it’s like a red blood thing or whatever  
TG: truly tragic  
TG: she so desperately wants to infest me with our chitinous love spawn, but i'm completely barren  
TG: my grubsac will never know the wrigglings of new life  
TG: we will be sad and childless for all our lives  
TG: why did you even have to bring up this topic egbert? you're ruining my relationship  
EB: sorry. :( 

You close your laptop without waiting to see if Dave has anything else to say. He’s your bro, and you know he’ll understand that you just kind of need to think for a minute. You lean back in your chair, and stare out of the window of your study. 

You are John Egbert, and you live in a world that is made up of only handfuls of people. Approximately one part human to three parts troll, an indeterminate amount of chess people, as well as a pinch of people who don’t fit neatly in the previous three categories. 

You’re John Egbert, and you’re just almost eighteen and you’ve spend the better part of your teenage years in a game that ripped apart the universe and expected you to put the pieces back together. You’re not quite sure you did it right, and you’re not even sure if the game is exactly over or not. There’s a team of people working on figuring that out, just like there’s a team of people trying to figure out how you all might continue your respective species if this really is all that’s left. You belong to a different team, a subset that Karkat deems “TEAM KEEP OUR MISERABLE FAILURE ASSES OUT OF THE RAIN”, because you may not be the best at figuring out code or dealing with ecto-biology beyond pressing random buttons, but you sure know how to swing a hammer.

You’re John Egbert, and you live with your alien boyfriend, because even though you said you’d be fine living in this house alone, he rightfully insisted that he stay with you; he said you’d be a wreck all alone by yourself in a house that’s a duplicate of the one your Dad (or Dad-Lusus as Karkat calls him) once lived in. (And he’s right, of course. He does keep you sane, even if it’s just his shouting keeping you anchored to the present.)

You’re John Egbert, and you may have just knocked up said alien boyfriend. And you honestly have no idea how to feel about that.


	2. Act II: Being a Teen Dad is Hard, Especially When You Aren’t One

As it turns out, Karkat’s baby bump is quite squishy and comfy. You rest your head on the massive bump lightly, careful not to put too much pressure on it. 

Karkat just glares at you. “What are you doing?”

“Cuddling,” you say, pecking a kiss on the top of his stomach. 

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, I can see that.” 

You nuzzle your nose against him for good measure. 

“Fuck, quit that. That tickles, damn it.” 

“Karkat, don’t curse in front of Casey.”

“John, for the fucking last time. First of all, it can’t understand me,” he says, gesturing at his swollen belly. “Second of all, we’re not naming it Casey. You already used up the name on the lizard. Get over it.” 

You chuckle and decide not to point out that Casey is a salamander. “Yeah, I know. But I can’t just call her ‘It’ until she’s born. That’s mean.” 

“You don’t even know that it’s a girl yet, asshole.” 

“Shh, don’t curse in front of the baby.” 

He covers his face with a pillow and screams. You just laugh. You pull his shirt up so you can kiss the bump directly, powdering kisses from where his belly-button would be if he were human and up to his sternum. He peaks out from under the pillow to glare at you. 

“Are you done?” he asks. 

You shake your head and scoot up so you can catch his lips with yours. He throws the pillow away, and wraps his arms around your neck. You sigh and he pulls you closer to him, tangling his fingers in your hair while grazing the points of his sharp teeth over your lips. You feel his breath hitch as you tease your tongue over his lip. 

You pull away slowly, but not before you grab his bottom lip in yours, teasing it with your teeth before you slide away.

“Love you, Karkat,” you whisper, nose to nose with him. 

He smiles. “Yeah, I noticed.” He pulls you back in for another kiss, rougher this time. You feel his rough tongue parting your lips when—

* * *

You wake up to the sensation of a horn prodding your chin. It’s lucky for you that Karkat has tiny nub horns, because with his penchant for cuddling closer to you in the night you might be at risk of losing an eye otherwise. 

You give a hasty once over of Karkat’s body to confirm that there is in fact no large baby bump. It would be weird if there was, considering that you only found out about the pregnancy thing yesterday.

Apparently you were just dreaming that. Damn, it was nice though. 

After your extensive google searching yesterday, you decided to let the issue rest, and neither you nor Karkat commented on the possibly pregnant elephant in the room. Karkat had gone to bed early, complaining of a stomachache, and he must have been too distracted to notice how that made you freeze in place like a scared rabbit.

You guess that stuff was still on your mind though, and your subconscious ran wild with it. 

Karkat is lying on your right arm, and you wiggle it out from under him as best you can. It’s mostly numb, and you can’t pull it out from under his neck without waking him up and risking the wrath of a sleepy troll. Instead you twist so that you can rest it on his head, and you scratch right behind his right horn. 

He sluggishly leans into your scratching, and purrs lightly. Apparently not all trolls can purr; it’s something that he’s insecure about and would probably kill you if you divulged that fact to anyone else. 

You think it’s adorable though. 

He starts blinking, slowly waking up. His lips begin to tug up at the corners, almost forming a smile.

Almost. 

Consciousness seems to hit him all at once, and as soon as it does he bolts upwards. He scrambles out of bed, getting so badly tangled in the sheets that he drags them out of bed with him and trips. This only barely slows his progress though, as he runs out of the bedroom and across the hall, into the bathroom.  
You’ve barely gotten enough time to sit up before you hear the sound of Karkat’s stomach contents hitting the water of the toilet. 

Welp. 

You pull yourself out of bed, frowning as you make your way out of the room. You’ve heard about this, right? Morning sickness. That’s what it is in all the movies you’ve ever seen. In fact, if movies are anything to go by, morning sickness seems to be the number one reason for throwing up in the history of ever. 

Number two is of course hangovers, but that’s clearly not the case here. 

You lean on the door frame of the bathroom, and shove your hands into your pockets to hide the fact that your fingers seem to be wiggling nervously, beyond your control. 

“So, uh…” You’re not sure what to say here. You kind of wish you were Dave; he always has something nonchalant to say in every situation. 

Karkat has already flushed the toilet, but instead of getting up he’s still a heap on the floor, glaring at the toilet—you suppose he’d rather you call it a load gaper—as if it was personally responsible for his suffering. 

“Remind me to tell Kanaya to piss off next time she wants me to be the guinea pig for her culinary experiments. That grub cake was… actually, I think it’s an insult to even consider calling that grub cake. I’m sure that there were no actual grubs in it, just failure and—”

He’s cut off when his body spasms with something in between a gag and a burp. You jump a bit, thinking he’s going to puke again, but after a moment he seems fine. 

“Never again,” he mutters. 

You smile and offer him a hand to help him stand up. He grudgingly accepts your help, wobbling a bit on his feet. 

“No problem,” you say. “I’ll cook breakfast and you’ll feel a lot better. There won’t be any grubs in anything, fake or otherwise.” 

He begins brushing his teeth, glaring at you. “I like grubs though,” he says, his words garbled around the brush. 

You panic. Is this it? Is he going to tell you? That would be a really shitty segue, but this is Karkat we’re talking about. 

Your panic must have shown on your face, because he stops brushing to direct all of his attention at you. 

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” you say. “Just, um… How do pancakes sound?” 

“Bleh,” he says, stick out a tongue and spitting into the sink. “Too sweet. You want me throwing up again?”

“Nope,” you say quickly.

He sends you a glare via his mirror reflection which pretty clearly states, ‘It was a rhetorical question, fucknuts.’

“How about scrambled eggs then?” 

He gargles a bit before spitting and turning to you. “With crispy oinkbeast meat?” 

“Yep. All of the bacon. All of it.” 

He smirks, pushing past you to leave the bathroom. “Now, that I can eat. I’ll meet you downstairs.” 

Oh shit. Stairs. 

You jump into step right behind him. 

“Oh, uh… I’ll just walk down with you.” 

He spins around, and you have to jump to stop your momentum before you crash into him. 

“Why are you acting so weird right now?” 

“Wwhat?” 

“If you must stutter like a moron, at least don’t do it on syllables that make you sound like a goddamn seadweller.” He points a finger at your chest. “Now, look, I know what’s going on here.”

“You do?” you ask. “I mean, um… I’m not acting weird.”

“Like fucking hell. You have your whole waste-chute-retentive routine that you go through every single morning: You get up, you brush your humongous teeth, and then you get dressed even though there is literally no reason to change out your pajamas just to eat goddamn breakfast.”

“I just like having a routine,” you mutter. 

“Whatever,” he says, rolling his eyes. “The point is, quit acting like I’m about to fall apart just because I threw up. I’m not some weakling that needs your constant attention just to make sure I get down a flight of stairs okay.”

You blink. “Oh, yeah, uh… right.” 

He narrows his eyes at you. “I guess the real question here is, are you okay?” 

“Yep, fine,” you say, a bit too loudly. “I, uh… I’ll go brush my humongous teeth. Heh heh.” 

He raises an eyebrow at you, but doesn’t comment. Instead he turns back towards the stairs. 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t watch him the whole way down.

* * *

By the time you get downstairs, he’s hovering over the coffee machine, glaring at the tin of coffee grounds. You’re not sure why he’s glaring, but since that’s almost his default emotion, you figure that it’s best not to question it. 

He’s proceeding to opening the tin and digging for the scooper when you have a flashback to one of the more useful pieces of your googling endeavor yesterday. 

There are things that pregnant women—err, people—shouldn’t drink or eat.

One of them is caffeine. 

You are quite certain coffee has caffeine. 

You jump over to him and slap the lid back on the tin. You catch his fingers in the process, and he pulls them out quickly. He looks up at you, with a deadpan glare. 

“John.”

“Karkat.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Umm…”

You stand in silence for a moment, holding the lid down on the coffee tin as if it might spontaneously spring off. Karkat spares a glance towards the tin, before turning his gaze back at you. 

“John, I understand that today you are having some truly amazing struggle with your stupidity. And I swear, I will help you sort through whatever massive stupidity aneurism you’re having right now. But I cannot do that without coffee.”

“But you can’t have coffee, because it’s bad for the—” You stop abruptly, before that sentence can get dangerously awkward. 

Karkat is still waiting for an end to it, though, waving his hand to urge you on. “The…?” 

“Umm… stomach,” you say. “Yeah, caffeine, it like… messes up … stomachs. And since you were throwing up, it’d probably be really bad.”

He raises an eyebrow at you.

“Maybe you could try some of that tea Kanaya brought. One of the, uh… low caffeine ones.” You smile, hoping that will make your case more convincing. 

“Well, you see, two problems there,” Karkat says, snarling slightly. “One, that means I will once again be subject to Kanaya’s questionable taste in food products. And two, something with low-caffeine will not, surprisingly, meet my daily need for large amounts of caffeine.”

“Well, I mean, the tea has other good stuff in it to help,” you say. “Like, uh… antioxidants… Whatever those are…”

“Convincing,” Karkat growls. 

You decide to take a more direct approach and grab the bull by the horns. Or, more accurately, the shoulders. You take a risk by letting your hands off the coffee tin—luckily it does not seem to animate and pop off, releasing a swarm of caffeinated death upon your mate—and you steer Karkat towards the kitchen table. 

“Just sit down, and I’ll make breakfast and boil water—or whatever it is you do to make tea—and it’ll all work out.”

“John, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not dying?” 

You more or less force him to sit in the chair. 

“Humor me, okay?” 

He sits, and looks up at you. His glare softens at your patented barkbeast-eye look. 

He sighs, defeated. “Fine. If it will make you feel better, I’ll try the stupid tea. But if this monstrosity wreaks havoc on my insides once again, I will have to murder both you and Kanaya, and it would be a shame to lose both of my red quadrants at once.” 

You kiss his head, right between his horns. 

“It’ll be fine. Just leave everything to me.”

* * *

“John, I swear to your human God, if you don’t quit following me, I am going to eat you alive!” 

You briefly wonder if that falls under irritability or food cravings on the list of pregnancy symptoms before deciding that either way you should probably do your best to avoid that fate. 

“What? I’m just walking you to work,” you say as chipper as you can. “Oh, watch out, there’s a rabbit hole right there. Don’t want you to trip.”

He sighs, and easily avoids the rabbit hole almost as if he didn’t need your help at all. “Yeah, except my ‘work’ is wandering around and checking on each miserable group of assholes to make sure everyone is actually keeping this god-awful society of ours running. And because I am the self-appointed task master of all you leaky-panned nook-whiffers, I happen to know you’re supposed to be helping the least bearable of the two Striders break up some bedrock on the east side of the colony, instead of following me around like a lost bark-beast.” 

From context clues, you know he’s referring to Dirk, but his least favorite of the two Strider brothers seems to change from week to week. 

“Well, I can take a little while longer to get there.” 

He stops to focus his energy at glaring at you. 

“No, you can’t, because you’re driving me crazy and it isn’t even noon yet. Seriously, can you just get your head out of my nook for five goddamned minutes?” 

You try to respond to that, but you’re suddenly tripping over your words. The mention of heads and nooks is suddenly giving you some google search related PTSD that you were hoping you wouldn’t have to face again for several months. 

“Oh, uh, I, well…”

“Great! Glad we agree! See you at home, John!” He turns away, resuming his brisk walk. Just as quickly though, he trips on a stray rock. 

“Karkat!”

He catches himself easily and turns back to you. 

“I swear to God, if you ask if I am okay, I am going to murder you in the most Just way possible!”

You decide not to comment on that as he stalks away angrily.

Dave appears next to you, almost as if he’s been waiting for the opportunity. Which, he very likely has been. He’s a lot like Karkat in that he doesn’t really have an assigned job, and just sort of wanders around until someone needs him for something. 

“Trouble in troll paradise?” he asks. 

“He’s being completely unreasonable,” you sigh. 

Dave nods. “Well, you know what they say about pregnant women… Or, well, just pregnant people in general, I guess.” 

“Yeah,” you say. “I just want to make sure he’s okay. I mean, I don’t think he’s taking all of this very seriously.” 

Dave shrugs. “Well, you can’t just follow him around all day. That’s creepy shit, dude.” 

“Hey, maybe you could—”

“Not it.” 

You frown at him. “Gee, thanks.” 

“Sorry, but Vantas is ornery enough as usual. I definitely don’t want to get on his bad side right now.” 

“Yeah,” you sigh, knowing he has a point. “There has to be someone else that can just sort of, you know, check in on him for me.” 

“Hey, doesn’t he normally spend most of his time at the ecto-lab when he’s not running around all shouty?” 

“Yeah, you’re right,” you say, looking up at him. “That’s perfect. I’ll ask Roxy!” 

He raises an eyebrow at you. 

“Not Roxy?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Kanaya?”

He nods. 

“Oh, that does make more sense than asking your Mom.” 

He sighs. “Wow, this is really screwing with your head, isn’t it?” 

You shrug. “Yeah, it’s… weird. Anyway, thanks, Dave. I have to go find Kanaya.” 

You run off for the ecto-lab before Dave has a chance to respond.

* * *

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] 

GA: I Have Just Had The Strangest Conversation With John Egbert  
TT: Oh?   
GA: He Came Bursting Into The Lab And Insisted That I Keep An Eye On Karkat  
GA: When I Asked Why, He Insisted That I Already Knew Why, And Insinuated That It Was Rude For Me To Presume He Wouldn’t “Find Out”  
GA: He Then Spent The Next Several Minutes Ranting And Rambling About Karkat Not Taking Proper Care Of Himself, In Which He Spoke Ill Of Many Common Activities Such As Walking Down Stairs And Drinking Coffee  
TT: Well, we have all been properly warned about stairs, of course.   
GA: I Was Only Spared When Dirk And Equius Found Him In The Lab, As Apparently He Was Late To Help Them With Their Assigned Task  
GA: And Even Then He Was Highly Reluctant  
GA: They All But Had To Drag Him Out, All As He Shouted At Me To Make Sure Karkat Didn’t Drink Coffee  
TT: …  
TT: That is… quite odd to say the least.   
GA: Indeed  
TT: Do you think he is suffering some sort of psychotic break?   
GA: Were I To Venture A Guess, I Would Assume This Had Something To Do With My Conversation With Karkat Yesterday  
GA: Though To Be Honest I Thought John Would Take The News Well  
GA: Assuming The News Was Even Related To Him In A Timely Fashion, Considering Karkat’s Reluctance To Speak Of It  
GA: Also, I Am At A Loss On How That Would Even Tangentially Relate To Any Of The Subjects He Was Going On About  
TT: Ah, yes. The very secret plans of Kanaya Maryam to save her race.   
GA: Speaking Of, Have You Given It Any More Thought?   
TT: Kanaya, I thought I made it clear that I needed more time to consider this.  
TT: You only just broached the subject yesterday, and to be honest I am more concerned by the less than pleasant implications of my own species’ survival, given our small population.   
GA: Sorry. I Didn’t Intend To Rush You  
GA: Considering John’s Reaction, I Wanted To Make Sure That We Had Not Inadvertently Discovered A Universal Way To Cause Humans To Flip Their Shit  
TT: I assure you that, while undecided, my shit has remained steadfastly unflipped.   
GA: I Am Glad  
TT: Still, John’s reaction is quite odd. My psychological profile of him suggested that he would be the most receptive to the idea of parenthood.  
TT: Perhaps your conversation yesterday has nothing to do with it, and living with the angriest little troll has finally caused John to give in to the darkness of insanity.   
GA: I Would Not Rule That Out As A Possibility


	3. Act III: When the Dam Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small warning on this one that abortion is mentioned, and I should note that trolls trying to contextualize what abortion is in a way they understand should not be taken seriously...

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]

TG: hey tz  
TG: hey  
TG: sup  
TG: tz  
TG: tz  
TG: i’m not like, bored or anything  
TG: i mean, what? like, you think i can’t make it through a few days without you?  
TG: i mean that would be so lame  
TG: i just sort of  
TG: um  
GC: H3Y TH3R3 COOL K1D  
TG: TZ  
TG: i mean  
TG: hey  
TG: sup  
GC: H3H3H3. M1SS M3 ALR34DY, COOLK1D?  
TG: what?  
TG: pff  
TG: no  
TG: i can survive on my own…  
TG: so…  
TG: when do you think you’ll be back?   
GC: >:]  
GC: SOON, 1 HOP3  
GC: TH1S S33R TR1P FOR 4SSHOL3S 1S STUP1D  
GC: 1 GU3SS KR4NK1 THOUGHT THAT 1 COULD H3LP F1GUR3 TH1NGS OUT W1TH MY 4M4Z1NG S33R POW3R, BUT TH3R3 AR3 NO M1NDS FOR M3 TO P33R INTO OUT H3R3  
GC: ONLY TR33S  
GC: N4STY SM3LL1NG TR33S TOO  
TG: no secret of the universe shit?   
GC: NOT UNL3SS TH3 S3CR3T 1S SM3LLY TR33S  
GC: SO, YOU M1SS ME 4LR34DY?   
TG: uh, no  
TG: i have my own stuff going on  
GC: L1K3?   
TG: i’ll have you know that i pranked john into thinking that dude trolls can get pregnant  
GC: …  
GC: WH4T?  
GC: TH4T’S TH3 W31RD HUM4N TH1NG WH3R3 YOU 1NF3ST 34CH OTH3R W1TH LOV3 SP4WN, R1GHT?   
TG: yeah  
TG: dude was freaking out thinking that he got vantas pregnant  
TG: so, i told him trolls could get pregnant and let nature take its course  
TG: well, actually, i told him you said trolls could get pregnant  
TG: hope you don’t mind  
GC: 4ND BLU3 R4SPB3RRY BR41NS B3L13V3D YOU?   
TG: as far as i can tell, he’s been driving vantas crazy, trying to make sure he doesn’t do anything that will ‘hurt the baby’  
GC: H3H3H3  
GC: W3LL DON3, COOLK1D  
GC: 1M 1MPR3SS3D >:]  
TG: i figure by this point, vantas is about ready to launch himself into the green sun just to get away from the egbert pampering treatment  
TG: everyone has noticed that egbert’s acting fucking weird, but i’m the only one that knows why  
TG: egbert just won’t stop though  
TG: he’ll coddle and pamper vantas in public, private, everywhere  
TG: he’s a varsity cross-country pampering machine  
TG: he’s gonna go pro  
TG: get picked up by one of the major-league pampering teams and get a sweet advertising gig on cereal boxes  
TG: he’ll inspire inner-city kids to believe that one day they can be an all-star mother hen too  
GC: HOW LONG H4S TH1S B33N GO1NG ON FOR?   
TG: oh about  
TG: three days

* * *

It’s been three days. 

Three. Days.

Three fucking days since you overheard Karkat and Kanaya talking in the kitchen, and Karkat has not said a damn word to you about any of it. 

You’ve spent three days steering him away from anything that the internet has told you isn’t pregnancy friendly. You’ve watched him like a hawk every time he moves, afraid he’ll trip or fall or something. (You especially watch the stairs. You’ve been warned about stairs. Just, basically, fuck stairs.)

And Karkat just thinks you’re going crazy, instead of acknowledging what is so obviously true. It’s all so obvious; he’s been crabbier and crankier lately. (And yes, it is possible. You live with him, and you know it’s more than his normal cranky.) He’s been eating weird stuff and you’re quite sure he’s even gained a little weight around his midsection. 

It’s really obvious, and you find it a little bit offensive that he hasn’t seen fit to come clean about it to you. 

I mean, why wouldn’t he just tell you? 

You’re thinking about this instead of trying to discern the plot of this terrible troll romcom that you’re watching with him. He’s right next to you on the couch, eyes wide as saucers staring at the screen, shoveling popcorn and gummy worms into his mouth. 

Popcorn and gummy worms. Seriously? That might as well be a positive pregnancy test right there. 

He must think you are really stupid not to pick up on all of this. He’s always insulting your intelligence, but you’ve always known it was joking. (And it was joking; you’d never doubt that.) But this time he must really believe it if he thinks you can’t see the obvious. 

Why would he keep hiding it?

…

Unless… of course… he doesn’t want you to know. Like, ever…

You remember the conversation he had with Kanaya. She said he ‘still had time to think about it.’ 

Shit, what does that mean? 

Does he not want to have a baby with you? Why wouldn’t he? You’d be a good dad. Okay, so you really don’t know shit about raising kids, much less half-troll ones, but that doesn’t mean you won’t give it a shot. 

Is he ashamed of you? Does he want to leave you? 

Wait, shit, no, what if it’s the baby? What if he doesn’t want the baby at all? What if he’s afraid it will be some terrible half-human, half-troll mutant baby? 

Well, in all likelihood, it will be, but that’s no reason to put it up for adoption… Wait, shit! No, that’s not what would happen! 

No, Karkat wouldn’t get an abortion, would he? There’s no need for that! You can do this! You can be a dad! You’ll take care of it and love it and…

“KARKAT, PLEASE DON'T GET AN ABORTION! I WILL LOVE OUR MUTANT BABY WITH ALL MY HEART!!"

You only realize that you shouted that at the top of your lungs when Karkat turns to you, half a gummy worm hanging from his mouth. 

He doesn’t say anything, just slowly reaches for the remote and pauses the movie. He takes his sweet time chewing and swallowing his mouthful of popcorn and gummy worms before turning back to you with a deadpan glare. 

“What?” 

“Karkat, please, okay look.” You turn to him, debating about whether to grab his shoulders or something. You instead decide gesturing wildly is probably the best approach. “Karkat, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but we really should, because I think it’s really selfish for you to keep this from me, okay? I know you’re pregnant, and I know you’re thinking about getting an abortion, but…”

“Okay, question one, what does pregnant mean? Question two, what’s an abortion?” 

“But, really, I don’t think you’ve really thought this through. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I mean, I know, you have a say in this too. Like the more important say too. I know it’s, like, your body and stuff, but I feel like you should just know how I feel… and stuff.” 

He grabs his palm husk from the table. “Okay, I’m just going to start googling the words I don’t understand. Please, continue your magnificent impression of a dam breaking, flooding the innocent villagers’ houses with the waters of insanity.” 

“Look, Karkat, I know that this is kind of a weird time and place for all this. I mean, we live in this place that still seems to be a game construct, and we’re kind of rebuilding civilization or whatever, and we’re just lucky that the game still provides us with stuff like electricity and internet. But that’s no reason to be scared. This was going to come up sooner or later, right? I mean Kanaya and Roxy and a bunch of the others are all figuring out trolls can reproduce and stuff anyway. 

“But I guess we just, you know, figured it out. By accident. But that’s awesome. 

“And, like, I know that you’re probably scared and freaking out. And I kind of am too. But this is actually really awesome. I mean, we could be dads Karkat! Isn’t that awesome? I mean, maybe you never thought about that stuff, since trolls don’t do that normally, but I think it would be really cool!”

You kind of run out of words to say, staring at him intently. He’s staring quizzically at his palm husk. “Okay, so from what the internet has told me, pregnant is when humans infest each other with gross parasites, that are actually your young. And then abortion is when you kill the parasites?” 

“No,” you say. “Well, yeah, I guess. But it’s not a parasite, it’s a baby.”

“Right, right, but…” He pauses, staring off into space with a pained expression. “Oh god, this conversation is so stupid, I think my brain is collapsing in on itself… So, you thought I was infested with your grub parasites?” 

“Uh, yeah,” you say. “I mean, it’s really obvious. You’re all cranky and eating weird foods and you even have a baby bump; look!”

You poke his pudgy stomach and he angrily slaps your hand away. 

“Okay, one, I’ve been irritable because I’ve been sick from Kanaya’s awful cooking and for some reason someone has been treating me like an invalid and keeping me away from all things caffeinated. Two, gummy worms and popcorn taste good together, asshole. And three, fuck you! So I haven’t been exercising lately. Excuse the fuck out of me. Maybe I would if I didn’t keep running into Zahhak’s smug, well-toned ass every time I go to that godforsaken area we set up as the gym.”

You deflate, your shoulders slumping. “So, you’re not pregnant?” 

“No,” he barks. “What gave you such an asinine idea anyway?” 

“Uh, well… I heard you and Kanaya talking…”

“So, you were eavesdropping?” he says with a frown. 

“No,” you say quickly. “I was just going to get something from the kitchen the other day when you two were talking. And I just heard a few words and phrases.” 

He shakes his head. “Okay, but were any of those words and phrases ‘Karkat, you’ve been infested with John’s hellspawn’ because I sure as fuck don’t remember that coming up at all.” 

“Well, no,” you admit, suddenly finding your cuticles extremely interesting. “It’s just, um… Well, you were talking about wrigglers or something, and you mentioned me and… I guess I jumped to conclusions… a little.”

“You think?” he spits. “Jesus poledancing God in a rusted over ablution trap, this is why you’ve been acting like a rabid moron lately, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” you mutter. “But, in my defense, I thought it was a stupid idea too. Until Terezi said male trolls could get pregnant and…”

“Terezi,” he snarls. “You. Asked. Terezi?” 

You open your mouth to respond, but he holds out a hand to stop you. 

“No. No no no. Let me get this straight. You thought I was infested with parasites and your go to person was… TEREZI?!” 

“Well, no… My go to person was Dave. He was the one that talked to Terezi.” 

He smacks his palm into his forehead so hard you’re worried it may have caused a concussion. “John…” 

“So, male trolls can’t get pregnant?” 

“NO, YOU SEED FLAP LICKING WASTE-CHUTE POUNDER, OF COURSE WE CAN’T! THERE ISN’T EVEN A WORD IN OUR LANGUAGE FOR THAT!”

It’s a good thing you’re still sitting on the couch, because this is a lot to absorb at once. “Wow, I can’t believe it.”

“I know! The wonders of troll biology are never ending!” Karkat shouts.

“No, I mean… Dave bested me in a Prankster’s Gambit… I… I don’t… I never thought this would happen.” 

You realize that that probably wasn’t the best response when Karkat gapes at you, wide-eyed and speechless. 

You know it’s bad when Karkat is rendered speechless. 

“That is your main concern right now?” he whispers, forcing the words out slowly.

You shrug. “Sorry, I mean… I’ve only believed that male trolls could get pregnant for three days, but I’ve spent years believing no one but my Dad could best me in a Prankster’s Gambit.” 

He buries his face in his hands and nods. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. I’m just going to examine my life and my choices real quick. Because, wow. This is my life right now.” 

You sigh. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” he groans into his hands. “This is probably my fault. Somehow.” 

You frown and look at him. “So, then, what were you and Kanaya talking about then?”

He sighs, rubbing his hands down and away from his face. “You know, if I had realized that telling you that three days ago would have saved me from three agonizing caffeine-free days, I would have told you immediately after she left…” 

You raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue. 

He takes a deep breath. “Well, while you were busy coming up with ridiculous fantasies about how trolls reproduce, Kanaya was busy dealing with reality. She thinks they might be able to create a mothergrub soon, using ecto-biology.”

“That’s awesome,” you say. “Now your species won’t go extinct!”

“Yeah, and I’ll finally be able to get a decent grubloaf sandwich,” he mutters. 

“So, what does this have to do with me?” you ask.

“Well, the thing is, Kanaya doesn’t think they can recreate all the lusii. I mean, given enough time, maybe, but the mothergrub was the main concern, so making a mothergrub is way more important.” 

“So, you guys would be able to make grubs, but you wouldn’t have any lusii to raise them?”

He nods. “Trolls don’t raise their own young. We never have. And Kanaya knows that humans do, but it would be supremely dickish to force you guys to raise our species’ young for us. So, she thought it might be best to assign grubs to… well, troll and human couples. At least at first.” 

Your eyes widen. “So, we’d get a grub? And so would Rose and Kanaya and Dave and Terezi…”

“Well, maybe not Dave and Terezi,” he interjects. “I mean, can you imagine trusting either of them with a wriggler?”

You nod. Fair point. “So, wait… You mean… We could still be dads?” 

“Yes, we could be ridiculous dad-lusii together,” he says, squirming nervously. “I just, didn’t want to bring it up to you until I was sure how I felt about it. But you’ve made it abundantly clear that you’re all in on this asinine adventure to the undiscovered country of wriggler rearing.” 

You hug him so hard that you both end up falling over, sprawling out on the couch. 

“This is awesome!” you shout. “I mean, uh… We don’t have to if you’re not sure about it, but, umm… I really, really want to.”

“Yeah, I gathered that from the ‘I will love our mutant baby with all my heart’ speech.” He sighs. “I never said I didn’t want to… I just need to think about it. Trolls aren’t meant to be lusii.” 

You shrug. “I don’t think trolls are meant to be flushed for humans either.” 

He kisses you on your nose and you giggle. 

“Well, I’ve done stupider things for loving you,” he says with a half-smile. 

“Is that a yes?” you ask, grinning widely. 

“Yes, it’s a yes, you rust-panned—”

You cut him off with a kiss. “I can’t wait to have a bunch of little Egbert-Vantases running around.” 

“Only my last name. Egbert is not a proper troll name! And who said anything about ‘a bunch’?” 

You hug him tighter, avoiding the argument through crushing. You could argue about names and numbers later. 

“Thanks, Karkat. This… means a lot to me.” 

“Yeah… I know.” 

“Flushed for you, Karkat.”

“Love you too, John.”


	4. Epilogue: In the Family Way

_Three sweeps later…_

You turn to shush Jossen as you hear footsteps coming towards your hiding place. The two and a half sweep old troll stifles a giggle, and he ducks his head so that his reflective eyes won’t give you away. 

The footsteps stop, and you hear a muffled grunt from the other side of the door. “So, you say there’s a monster in the closet?” you hear Karkat ask, a bit too playful to come off as really irritated. 

“Mmhmm. A big scary one!” Leetah shouts. She still hasn’t quite gotten the idea of how an inside voice works. 

“Now, I told you before. Closet monsters aren’t real.” 

“Last time there was a real monster!”

“I told you; that wasn’t a monster. That was just Aunt Terezi in a costume, and that’s why we have a no dragons in the house rule now.” 

“Just look, okay? Pleeeease.” 

You smile. Oh, yes. Karkat is a sucker for the elongated please. 

“Fiiiine,” he says, careful stretching out the syllable just as long as she did. 

You can just barely see their outlines through the crack in the door. Karkat is holding Leetah, but he puts her down for this. You wave to Jossen and raise your can of silly string. He raises his too, prepared to pull the prank of the week. 

“Okay, let’s see this monster.” 

“Wait,” Leetah shrieks. “Don’t just open the door! Count to three, so that I’m ready for the monster to jump out!” 

Karkat sighs, and your smile widens. Yes, just as planned. Good girl. 

“Alright. Oooone…” 

You brace yourself, waiting to strike on three. 

However, three never comes. Two didn’t even bother to make an appearance. Instead the door swings open in the blink of an eye, and suddenly you find yourself pelted with silly string. 

You’re too shocked to even return fire. 

Once the can spraying you has depleted, you look over to see that your son is similarly covered. 

Karkat is standing over you, triumphantly sneering. Leetah is giggling madly, pointing at her brother. 

“What? How did you know?” you sputter through pink strings of… whatever silly string is actually made of.

“The old monster in the closet trick, huh?” Karkat asks. “John, please. Fool me once shame on me. But fool me fifty or more times, and eventually my daughter will take pity on me.”

He and Leetah share a father-daughter fist bump, and you have to admit that they kind of earned that. 

“Lee, you double crossed us! That’s not fair,” Jossen protests, pulling silly string out of his hair. “You were supposed to be in cahoots with us, not Pops.” 

“Nu uh, Jos. It’s totally fair. You’re just mad cuz you lost on this Prankster’s Gambit.” She sticks her tongue out at Jossen, to reinforce her excellent argument. 

“Alright. Bed now.” Karkat barks, clapping his hands. “Enough pranks.” 

The two kids—you have trouble not calling them the twins since you got them at the same time and they’re from the same clutch—both groan as they climb into their bunk bed.

“Where’s Rho?” Karkat asks, after taking a cursory glance around the room, including the ceiling.

“Right here,” you say. You tug at the collar of your shirt, and a small head pops out right under your chin. “She wanted to prank you too, but I think the silly string scared her.” 

Karkat rolls his eyes and extracts the green grub from your shirt. It takes a bit of doing to get her to quit clinging to his hands and into her crib. (To be honest, it’s actually more of a cage, since cribs don’t really do much for grubs that can climb everywhere. But you prefer to call it a crib because cage sounds kind of cruel.)

You take the opportunity to finish peeling off the mat of silly string on your head, and throw it into the garbage. You help Jos get the last of it out of his hair before tucking him into the top bunk, and then doing the same for Lee on the bottom. 

Rho chirps a little, disgruntled, as Karkat slams the lid on her crib-cage. 

“Night, kids.” 

You drown in a flood of “Night, Dad” and unintelligible chirping. 

Karkat follows you out of the room and in one swift motion grabs the back of your shirt collar and keeps walking, dragging you down that hallway. 

“Hey,” you squeak, trying your best to walk backwards. “What are you doing?” 

He doesn’t answer, but you think he might be scowling.

“Is this because I pranked you again? I mean, you can’t be mad about that, right? I mean, it happens all the time. Oh shit, that’s why you’re mad, isn’t it?” 

He pushes the door to the master bedroom open, and more or less throws you inside. You lose your balance and fall backwards onto the bed. 

Karkat must be getting faster, because he closed the door without you even really noticing, and climbs on the bed, on top of you.

His scowl breaks into a smile with a small laugh. “No, I’m not mad.” 

“You’re not?” you ask as his face hovers closer to you. 

“Nope. Not even a little.” 

“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?” 

He kisses you and you scoot back so that you can lean back on the headboard. He follows you so that you never break contact. 

“There is no Karkat. Only Zeul,” he whispers when you break apart. 

You raise an eyebrow. “Was that a Ghostbusters reference?”

He grins. “If it is, does that mean we can have sex?” 

“I thought that was the plan all along.”

“If you quote Nic Cage again, I’m going to punch you in every genital you own, John.”

You admire how he can say things like that and still sound seductive. 

He leans in for another kiss, and you can just feel his lips beginning to graze yours when—BANG. 

There’s a loud crash from down the hall, and the shouting of two young trolls. Karkat groans and buries his head in your chest. 

“Want me to?”

“No, I’ll go,” he mutters, pulling himself up. “But this better be a fucking emergency, I swear to the goddamned horrorterrors.” 

You kiss him on the cheek. “The bed and I will still be here when you get back.” 

He gives you a half-hearted grin and stomps out of the room. You slump back on the bed and try to relax. To be honest, you’re sore and tired and pretty much exhausted, because raising trolls is clearly the work of monsters and you’re doing the best you can as a mere human. 

But still, you wouldn’t change a thing about your weird family.

“HOW IN THE FUuu… I mean… FREAKING HECK DID YOU MANAGE TO FLIP OVER THE Go-GOSH DARNED BUNK BED?”

Yep. You wouldn’t change a thing.


End file.
